


Serotonin

by calswrites



Category: Prodigal Son (TV 2019)
Genre: Brightwell, F/M, Fluff, Friends With Benefits, Serotonin, fwb to lovers, the occasional smut (maybe not so occasional)
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-05-29
Updated: 2020-06-02
Packaged: 2021-03-02 23:47:28
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,568
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24445297
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/calswrites/pseuds/calswrites
Summary: “I could really get used to that,” he said, rubbing circles on her back with his thumb. “Would that be okay with you?” He was implying a purely physical relationship – no commitment. He figured it would be easier to have all the positives without the negatives that were bound to come with a formal relationship.“What, like a friends with benefits thing?”[ Please pay attention to the explicit warning! This story will most likely contain a fair share of sex, language, etc., so read at your own risk! ]
Relationships: Dani Powell & Ainsley Whitly, Dani Powell & JT Tarmel, Dani Powell & Jessica Whitly, Gil Arroyo & Dani Powell, Gil Arroyo & Malcolm Bright, Malcolm Bright & Ainsley Whitly, Malcolm Bright & Dani Powell, Malcolm Bright & JT Tarmel, Malcolm Bright/Dani Powell
Comments: 7
Kudos: 49





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> hiya! so this is kind of a restart of casual (rip) but w a slightly different fwb to lovers arc? i don't really know what i'm doing, i'm just kinda vibing, but i'd love it if you came and vibed w me. please read the small warning about the possible explicitness and read at your own risk! i'd love any feedback that you had - that and kudos are always, always appreciated <3

The last thing she remembers before her world went completely black was his eyes. Malcolm Bright’s confusing but gorgeous mixture of green-blue eyes was the last thing that Dani Powell saw seconds prior to her passing out from pure pain, her head slamming onto the concrete floor under her. She remembered her pulling her fingers away from her leather jacket, covered in her blood. She remembered looking back up at him, his face filled with concern before her eyes rolled back in her head as she lost her grip on reality.

“Stay with her!” JT shouted at Bright as he began pursuing her shooter. Malcolm rushed to her side, crouching down to place his fingers on her neck, making sure her heart was still beating.

“Fuck,” he mumbled to himself, pulling his phone out of his pocket and dialing 911. While the phone rang, he winced as he used his palm to try and stop the blood gushing out of the wound in her shoulder. “Come on, babe, stay with me.” The pet name was a brief slip of the tongue that he knew she would tease him about if she was conscious, but he had more important things to be focusing on at the moment.

“911, what’s your emergency?”

Luckily, it was a through and through wound, so no real damage was done, but that didn’t help the pain that Dani first experienced when she woke up the hospital. She had no clue how long she had been out, or even what had happened as the anesthetics and painkillers the doctors had given her were clouding her mind at the moment. To be honest, she didn’t know if it was the medication or her concussion from hitting the concrete as hard as she did, but she knew something was off.

The first thing she saw when she opened her eyes was Bright. He had his head resting at the foot of her hospital bed, asleep. She had no idea how he was sleeping with the lights as fluorescent as they were, but it was a sight she could get used to. She decided to let him sleep since it was probably the first time he had slept in days.

Plus, she didn’t want him to see her cry. She wasn’t one for showing her emotions, but she absolutely despised getting hurt, especially in the field. As a woman of color in a position of power, she was already at a disadvantage, so she figured that this would only set her back more and confirm any doubts that anyone was having about her. She couldn’t even begin to imagine how long she would be out for, even if it was just a through and through. She knew that Gil would be overprotective about her being back in the field and that Bright… well, he would probably throw himself into even more life-threatening situations than he already did if it meant keeping her safe.

She started to think about what would have happened if the bullet was just a couple inches over and hit her heart. She thought about all the things she wouldn’t be able to see, the words she’s left unsaid, and all the opportunities she would never have gotten to experience. Tears started to fall a bit faster. She hated getting hurt.

“Hey,” Bright whispered to her, placing his hand on her leg. “Are you okay? Do you need me to get anyone?” She didn’t know how long he had been awake since she was focused too much on herself, but she hoped that he didn’t see too much of her crying.

“No,” she quickly wiped her cheeks with her good arm, “no, I-I’m fine.”

“As someone who often says that they’re fine when they’re not… I don’t think you are. Are you sure?” He squeezed her leg slightly to show that he was there for her. She shook her head slightly before leaning it back to stare at the ceiling. She didn’t want him to see her like this. “You’re going to be okay,” he said softly, trying to find some way to comfort her. “We’ll get you discharged as soon as possible and then I’ll take you home, okay? Gil’s orders so don’t even think about arguing against it.”

His last sentence was a small attempt at making her smile, which worked successfully. She even reached down for his hand to hold it. “Okay,” she said, letting out a small sigh.

Bright was right. They were out of the hospital fairly quickly, but with a big stack of instructions on how she should recover. He ordered an Uber for them even though she insisted that it wasn’t that far of a walk back to her apartment and she didn’t want him to be spending any money on her, but she realized that it was no use trying to convince a Whitly otherwise.

“Do you want anything?” he asked once they got inside her apartment. It was the first time he was in her house, but he decided to bypass the general compliments and analyzation of her decor (or lack thereof in Dani’s case). “Water, something to eat?”

“No, I think I’m just gonna try and get changed,” she said. The clothes she had been wearing were stained with blood, so she decided to abandon them and go home in some clean ones that the hospital staff gave her.

“Do you want help?” She raised her eyebrows a bit at his question, but then realized her situation and that it would probably be easier if he helped, so she nodded. She led him into her room and was able to pick out what she wanted to wear and take her shoes off without his help. “It might be easier to start with the pants first,” he suggested. She nodded again and smiled a bit at how awkward this must be for him. He didn’t really know where to look, so he just kind of gazed over her shoulder as he slid the pants that she got at the hospital over her hips.

“If you could, uh, sit down now so I can get them off without having to risk you losing your balance,” he said, swallowing hard after he did. She did as he asked, sitting down carefully on the edge of her bed so that he was able to slide her pants the rest of the way down and off her legs. He did the same, but just in reverse so that he could get the shorts that she had picked out on.

“You seem like you’ve done this before,” she joked, trying to break some of the silence that hovered over them.

He met her eyes briefly and smiled. “Maybe once or twice.” He started to help her get off her sling so that he could change her shirt. “Let me know if anything hurts, okay?” She nodded and let him do his thing. Getting her good arm out was easy, but he was a bit nervous about getting her head and her other arm out. He took a deep breath and tried to maneuver around her injuries. He felt her tense up as he slid it over her head, but other than that, he got it off successfully.

He tried his best not to look at her when she was mostly exposed to him for a couple of reasons. Mainly because it wasn’t his place to. They were just friends and he didn’t want to make anything more awkward between them by checking her out. But he couldn’t help the few times that he accidentally saw more than he should have. It was something that came with the territory, but he didn’t dwell on the glances. He already knew she was gorgeous, and he didn’t need anything to confirm that.

“Do you, uh… want me to…” he pointed at his own chest which was his way of vaguely asking her if she wanted him to take her bra off too. “I don’t, uh, know if it’s, you know… uncomfortable.”

“No, that’s okay. We can do that some other time,” she mumbled the last part, but it didn’t stop him from hearing it, causing his cheeks to turn a light shade of red.

He put a different shirt back on her the same way he got the other one off and then just kind of stood there, not knowing what else to do. “Thank you,” she said softly, not needing to speak up since their bodies were in such close proximity to each other.

“Anytime,” he responded with equally as gentle a tone.

Her eyes flickered briefly to his lips before she made the impulsive decision to lean in and kiss him, but before their lips made contact, he pulled away. “Sorry, that was… stupid,” she quickly said, avoiding making eye contact with him.

“No, it wasn’t. It just, it wouldn’t be fair to you,” he explained. “You’re on some really, really strong painkillers and I wouldn’t want it to be something you would regret when they wore off. I would. I really, really would, but just not right now.”

She nodded, forcing a little bit of a smile so that he would believe that she believed him even though she didn’t. “Yeah, yeah… uh, I should probably go to sleep.” She still didn’t meet his eyes. “Thanks for, uh, everything.”

He reached over and gave her hand a small squeeze, hoping to bring her eyes up to him again, but it didn’t work. “I’ll see you tomorrow, okay?”

“See you,” she whispered. She waited until he closed her bedroom door behind him as he left before she laid down on her bed, let out a sign, and tried not to cry. She had gotten rejected before, but nothing that ever hurt like how she was hurting now. She didn’t believe that he would, because, well, he didn’t. Little did she know that he was being as honest as he had been in his entire life.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> welcome to chapter two of serotonin! it's a little bit shorter, but it's pretty important to the plot, so i'm happy with its length and what it accomplishes and i hope you're happy with it too! kudos/comments/etc. are always appreciated!

Bright stayed the night. It felt only right because if anything was to go wrong, he wanted to be there. He sat at her kitchen counter as she slept like she had done for him once. Early in the morning, around four, he heard whimpering coming from her room. His first thought was that she was in pain, so he grabbed her medicines and rushed in to see her. To his surprise, she was still asleep. She was having a nightmare.

He wasn’t completely sure what to do. It was weird for him to be on the other side. He put down her medication on her nightstand before sitting on the edge of her bed. He placed his hand on her thigh and lightly started to shake her to try and wake her up. If that didn’t work, he had other options, but it didn’t seem as if she was going to get violent.

With a sharp gasp, she jolted awake. “Hey, hey,” he steadied her a bit, trying to help her adjust. “You’re okay. You’re safe.” She swallowed hard, fighting back the urge to cry again. She usually wasn’t this emotional, but she didn’t know how else to react.

“You stayed…” she said quietly, taking in the sight of him sitting on her bed. “I, you didn’t have to do that.”

“You stayed with me when I was high off of my ass. It’s only fair.” He reached over to push one of her curls behind her ear. She followed his hand back to his lap, wishing it was there for a little bit longer. “I can go if you want me to,” he added.

“No, no. Stay.” She propped herself up to be sitting properly face-to-face with him. “I’m, uh, I’m sorry for what I did, you know, earlier. I just got caught in the moment, I guess.”

“It’s fine, really. I meant what I said, too. I really, really like you, Dani and I wouldn’t want to take advantage of you. You deserve so much better than that.”

“You… you like me?” she said, a bit confused. She had never realized the possibility that he might like her back; she always thought it was one-sided.

“Of course, I do. Who wouldn’t? I would’ve done or said something sooner, but commitment isn’t really my thing.” He had his share of failed relationships, mostly because of who his father was, so he wasn’t too keen on getting into another one if it was just going to end the same way all of them did.

“Wow, uh, wow,” she said, attempting to process and adapt to what he just said. “So, what do we do now?” She really liked him too and felt that it would be a waste to just let their feelings hang precariously over their heads for who knows how long.

“Well… can I, can I kiss you?” Her eyes instantly lit up when he asked, and she nodded eagerly. He smiled at her reaction and pulled her onto his lap so that her legs straddled his torso. She draped her good arm over his shoulder, her hand lightly holding the back of his head. He kept one hand on the small of her back and used his other one to cup her face, running his thumb gently over her lips before pulling her closer, their lips now able to touch if they wanted them to, but they just stayed in close proximity for a second before they connected.

When they finally became one, it was gentle at first. Neither wanted to mess it up since they had both been dreaming of this moment since they first met. They tested their boundaries, slowly increasing the passion until their tongues were in each other’s mouths, exploring ravenously. They pulled away for air, both breathless. Dani licked her lips slightly, wanting to taste him again in their short absence. “That was… wow,” she breathed, her eyes flickering between his captivating eyes and his lips. “Now I don’t have to imagine that… wow.”

“I could really get used to that,” he said, rubbing circles on her back with his thumb. “Would that be okay with you?” He was implying a purely physical relationship – no commitment. He figured it would be easier to have all the positives without the negatives that were bound to come with a formal relationship.

“What, like a friends with benefits thing?” she asked, trying to clarify what he meant.

"Yeah, something like that. I mean, once you get better, of course, but like… I don’t know,” he started to ramble, stopping himself before he went too far.

“I, sure, sure, that sounds… really good.” Her imagination started to get the better of her, trying to picture how far they were going to go. “Really good,” she repeated under her breath. He smiled at her, seeing her eyes glaze over as she thought in depth. He decided that now would be a good time to press his lips on her jawline, catching her off-guard and earning a small gasp from her lips.

“Is this alright?” he mumbled against her skin. He felt her nod and continued, adding a bit more pressure to her jawline and then down her neck. She tilted her head sideways, ignoring the slight pain that came with the movement because the bliss she was experiencing overrode her senses. He began to hum against the sensitive spots he found, testing how far he could go without going too far.

He worked his way back up to her jaw and then to the base of her ear, his teeth gliding over her earlobe. “Want help getting changed this morning?” he whispered.

She was shocked at how so few words could send immediate chills up and down her spine. At a loss for words at this new side of him she was seeing, she nodded again, managing to utter out one single word: “Please.”


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is also,, very short but i liked it so here it is! hopefully the following chapters will be a bit longer (this one is just over 900 words) but no promises lmao. anyways, i hope you enjoy!

As Dani began to recover, the two became more physical than they had already been. Dani was stuck on desk duty until she got a clean bill of health from her doctor and even then, Gil probably wouldn’t let her into a situation that could pose even the smallest bit of danger any time soon. Paperwork didn’t stop Malcolm from flirting with her every minute he could and, when they were home, they tested their boundaries even more. He didn’t want to cause her any more pain than she must already have been in, but he decided that her body was a drug and he, the addict.

They hadn’t gone all the way yet, but that didn’t bother either of them. In their minds, they were waiting until they were both healthy enough to do anything they wanted to. For now, they just pushed the boundaries as much as they could. Bright continued to help Dani get dressed even when she didn’t need him to because it was another excuse for him to revel in her endless beauty. There was always something more for him to notice and appreciate. To her, it seemed that every moment they spent together, he continuously was complimenting her. She wasn’t complaining; it was something quite new to her and she was starting to get used to being treated right.

He still remembers the first time he heard her truly moan. He played the moment and the noise that sounded like music to him in his head every time he wasn’t with her to hear it in person. His favorite thing to do was kiss any and every part of her body whenever he could, so in that instance, he was helping her change as he usually did, but this time he kneeled down in front of her bed and started placing kisses on her knee, working his way up until he reached her inner thigh. It was when he turned his head to switch to her other thigh when his nose accidentally brushed against the lace fabric keeping her modest that she moaned. It wasn’t just a light breath of pleasure that he had gotten used to, but a deep one, practically begging him for more.

He had stopped, glancing up at her to see her with her eyes shut in pure bliss, before rubbing her thighs with his hands, going up and down to get her to open her eyes and look down at him. Even though her hormones were spiking, and she would have wanted nothing more than for him to fulfill the urges she had whenever they were together, she shook her head, indicating that she didn’t want him to go any further. He respected that and pushed himself up to kneel a little bit taller than he had been before. “That was so fucking hot,” he told her, placing his hands on her hips and rubbing small circles over the fabric, something he had gotten very good at doing and that she immensely enjoyed.

She smiled, reaching down to cup his face. “I’m glad.” He then began to go over and lightly kiss the places that he had already left small purplish marks – her stomach and chest being the main places. He tried to do them in places that wouldn’t be as noticeable so that if anyone saw them, they wouldn’t get suspicious of how much time the two of them had been spending together.

A week or so later, he broke this routine, leaving one of his most noticeable marks right on the side of her neck. In the moment, they both knew that this would happen, but, again, neither one stopped. Since it was technically his fault, Bright helped her cover it with as much foundation, concealer, color correctors, etc. since Dani wasn’t one to wear scarves unless it was the middle of winter. “Mm, maybe we should be a bit more careful,” he joked as he helped her style her hair in a way that it would help hide the hickey.

“Or we could just get better at hiding it,” she responded, staring at him in the mirror. She saw him glance up at the mirror before looking directly at her again.

“Ms. Powell, how come I’ve never seen this side of you before?”

“I don’t think you’ve been looking for it hard enough,” she smiled, turning to face him and cup his chin with her hand. “Trust me, it’s always been there.” She pressed her lips to his, enjoying the sensation that she had gotten quite accustomed to over the past couple of weeks that she’s been recovering. “Maybe we should reevaluate your profiling techniques,” she laughed slightly before he pressed his lips against hers again, not even minding the small dig at his life’s work. He was more interested in her and only her than some psychological shit that he’d studied for years and years on end. She was more important to him.

Neither of them wanted to admit it, but they had been attaching feelings to what was supposed to be a purely physical relationship. With the late-night kisses came the butterflies in her stomach whenever she saw him. With the heavy make-out sessions came the urge to show her off to everyone he knew. They both swore to not catch feelings for each other, insisting that it was simpler that way, but now they knew that was impossible.

They were falling. Hard.


End file.
